NEWS EXTRA

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Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel Will Host the Department of Defense’s National POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony

SOURCE: Department of Defense

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will host the Department of Defense’s National POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, at 10:15 a.m. EDT at the Pentagon River Terrace Parade Field.

The program will include remarks by Hagel and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James A. Winnefeld, Jr. A musical review by the U.S. Army Band and a pass in review with service honor guard units from the National Capital Region will also take place during the ceremony. The ceremony will conclude with a flyover of the Pentagon with a joint service aerial review.

Soldier Missing from Korean War Accounted For

SOURCE: Department of Defense

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Pfc. Arthur Richardson, 28, of Fall River, Mass., will be buried Sept. 18 in Arlington National Cemetery, Washington D.C. In January 1951, Richardson and elements of Company A, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment (IR), 24th Infantry Division (ID), were deployed northeast of Seoul, South Korea, where they were attacked by enemy forces. During the attempt to delay the enemy forces from advancing, Richardson and his unit were moving towards a more defensible position, when his unit suffered heavy losses. It was during this attack that Richardson was reported missing.

When no further information pertaining to Richardson was received and he failed to return to U.S. control during prisoner exchanges, a military review board reviewed his status in 1954, and changed it from missing in action to presumed dead. In 1956, his remains were declared unrecoverable.

Between 1991 and 1994, North Korea turned over to the U.S. 208 boxes of human remains believed to contain more than 400 U.S. servicemen who fought during the war. North Korean documents, turned over with some of the boxes, indicated that some of the remains were recovered from the vicinity where Richardson was believed to have died.

In the identification of Richardson’s remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and Armed Forces DNA Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, to include mitochondrial DNA, which matched his niece and grand-niece.

Today, 7,880 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. Using modern technology, identifications continue to be made from remains that were previously turned over by North Korean officials or recovered from North Korea by American recovery teams.

ASSIGNMENTS / APPOINTMENTS / ANNOUNCEMENTS

SOURCE: Department of Defense

FLAG OFFICER ASSIGNMENTS

General Officer Assignments

The chief of staff, Army announced the following assignments:

Brig. Gen. (Promotable) Paul A. Ostrowski, program executive officer, Program Executive Office Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to deputy for acquisition and systems management, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology), Washington, District of Columbia.

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command, on MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., Sept. 17, 2104. Obama traveled to the base to speak with troops and meet with Centcom leaders to discuss the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center back, attended the event.

First Lt. James Lockett (right), a native of Plymouth, Mass., who serves as platoon leader for 2nd Platoon, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, looks through his mounted site next to a linguist to monitor movement in the village of Hakim Jan, Afghanistan, Sept. 15, 2014. Lockett’s platoon conducted a joint patrol with the Afghan National Police to gather intelligence to assist them to maintain security in the area.

A U.S. Soldier from 173rd Airborne Brigade assists Paratroopers from the Italian Folgore Parachute Brigade prior to an Air Assault with U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawks, a CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apaches from 12th Combat Aviation Brigade Lielvarde Airbase, Latvia, during NATO exercise Steadfast Javelin II. Steadfast Javelin II is a NATO exercise involving over 2,000 troops from 10 nations and takes place across Estonia, Germany Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The exercise focuses on increasing interoperability and synchronizing complex operations between allied air and ground forces through Airborne and Air Assault missions. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Venessa Hernandez/Released)

A soldier prepares to swim ashore while conducting infiltrating operations in Santa Rosa Sound, Fla., Sept. 9, 2014. The soldier is a Green Beret assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. The soldiers in his unit honed their waterborne infiltration skills before conducting missions that included hostage rescue and sensitive site exploitation.